


Give A Little

by jencsi



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21661291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencsi/pseuds/jencsi
Summary: "Let me be the light upon the lake"Angst. Post "The End Game" and "Immortality"
Comments: 5
Kudos: 3





	Give A Little

The cardboard boxes are scattered all over the hardwood floor. Dust has accumulated despite his best efforts to keep it clean all these months. The set of keys rested on the kitchen counter-top where he could still see a ring of water on the surface, most likely from a coffee or tea mug. He reached for his phone and snapped a picture of it, it was remnants of what was once here. What a foolish thing to save, he thought, but it made his chest burn with guilt. 

There was a jacket flung over one of the armchairs. He picked it up and shook it, letting the dust fall but also feeling his heart beat faster when he saw a sliver of blonde hair fall to the ground. Using the tweezers from the kit nearby, he pinched it between the metal grabbers and placed it delicately into an evidence bag, sealing it tight. This was madness at it’s finest. 

Postcards and photographs were tucked neatly into little fabric slots attached to a board meant for displaying such things. The girls, smiling, singing karaoke, wearing sunglasses and hats by the pool, just existing, being girls, savoring those moments of calm before chaos. The guys with her, toasting beer bottles, cheering on whatever sports team they rooted for that day, her backwards Seahawks hat struggling to contain those wild curls, boys will be boys echoed in his head for some reason. She fit right in wherever she landed, and this board reflected that. The kids; Katie scooped up in her arms at a party, the goofy grin she wore while holding the child tight in her arms taking up the majority of his heart in this moment. Charlie and her running down a grassy field, passing a soccer ball back and forth, Barbara mastering the art of capturing this action with her camera that day. The pair of them, posing for the camera at Christmas last year, her head bumping against his, her hair sticking up, she never looked more beautiful, he remembered the feeling of that pressure against him when she leaned in for the photo. He ached for it now. 

Sunlight filtered through her tattered blinds. He lifted a finger between them to see the view she had. It wasn’t much, the city out ahead, some basic condo garden down below. Her books were piled up on the shelf closest to this window so she must have enjoyed reading here. Slips of paper were ripped off to mark the places she left off on. It pained him to see so many unfinished books, she wanted to know so much about the world and she did everything in her power to learn as much as she could. 

The more he wandered, the more he saw of her; clothes tossed into messy piles on an armchair, jeans, shirts, shoes kicked hastily under them. He felt a flush rise up in his cheeks of what she would say if she saw him walking around her space like this. He was feeling her embarrassment in the moment. When he reached her desk, this was the loudest space in the condo. It was scattered with papers, case-files, photos, sticky notes, torn sheets of lined paper with her familiar scrawl in it, links to her cases, numbers, leads, dotted lists of things to search next. One list in particular jumped out at him as he gently pushed aside papers to read more. He picked up the list and read. 

1\. New York with Sara and Morgan soon (Chicago, Miami, someplace hot and happening)  
2\. Buy that dress with the sparkles and sequence for New Years  
3\. Teach Henry how to throw a curve ball for the softball game next month  
4\. Finish the books in the corner  
5\. Donate those clothes to the shelter  
6\. Buy Sammy that new collar  
7\. Reorganize Seattle trip photos into a new album  
8\. Replace that shower rod, it’s getting rusty in the corner  
9\. Take Nicky to see the Cowboys play the Patriots in Dallas after Christmas.  
10\. Clean out that freezer, lord knows what is in there, yuck. 

His heart began to beat faster despite the fact that he was standing still. This was an itemized list of things she wanted to do, or had to do, desires of her heart, wants, needs, everyday rituals that were cut short, taken from her, snuffed out like a candle, poof, gone. The ache that had settled in his chest for weeks began to throb again, fresh, cut open, snapped in half, pierced with a dagger and now bleeding, slow, tragic. The pain was so intense, he had to look down at his chest to make sure he was not actually bleeding all over her floor. What would she have accomplished from this list? What would she have set aside for later? He felt bad for the girls and for Henry and Nick who would now not have these beautiful memories she was planning for them, for their future, one she never thought she wouldn’t see. Just the simplicity of her handwriting had sent him over the edge. The way she put pressure on this paper, how the warmth from her hand would linger here as she wrote. He was half tempted to dust it for her prints and preserve whatever he found. Panic set in when he realized he was contaminating it and everything else. 

He sealed the list inside another evidence bag then began rapidly shooting photos of everything as it was. He cursed himself for moving some of the items before he thought to do this. But he could not live without some reminder of how she was engraved in his brain and documented forever via these photos. Once he shot every angle of every room she once inhabited, did he feel satisfied enough to stop. He packed up his kit and the items he saved in bags before moving back towards the door. The landlord was anxious to rent this space out, but it was still evidence, evidence of a homicide and as law enforcement, it was Russell’s duty to return and gather as much evidence as possible for the case. Therefore, the landlord could not rent it until Russell released the scene, which, at the rate he was going, could take an eternity. As he shut the door and locked it up tight, he sighed and said to himself “We’ll try again next week” Anything, anything to keep her alive just a little bit longer in his heart and in his head, the only place he would ever see her again.


End file.
